


Springtime Daydream

by butterflykeyboard



Category: A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflykeyboard/pseuds/butterflykeyboard
Summary: Before summer comes the spring, a time of possibilities and chances.
Relationships: Michelle Cheung | Cheung Fong Ha/Sam Wong | Wong Ka Yan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Springtime Daydream

The weather may change, cool winds turning to humid days, but the climate controlled interior of the metro always tries to maintain the same temperature. While it might have been in the high 20s outside, here in the carriage the air was cool enough to make me pull my jacket closed.

I had to do so carefully, lest I disturb the woman who had fallen asleep in the seat beside mine. It was rude for someone to fall asleep on a stranger’s shoulder, but I was just glad to be sitting down. It was a rare thing to get a seat on a weekday, but in this case I was catching the metro from Mong Kok back towards work, the package I had to pick up resting on my lap. I’d made excellent progress on my work earlier in the day, so it was my duty to run out and pick up an urgent delivery from an electronics shop. I didn’t mind it. It was nice to get out of the office on a day like today, and it was also good to be seen as someone who was helpful to one’s co-workers.

The woman beside me shifted, and I felt her head now resting on my shoulders. Maybe I was feeling mellow after a good day at work, and the good fortune of getting a seat. Maybe the heat of the day had just left me feeling tired. I felt my eyes flutter – I could hardly be one to criticise when I was fighting back a yawn myself. I turned my head, and as I breathed in, the sweet scent of the woman’s shampoo filled my nose. It was a pleasant floral aroma, one that felt oddly familiar. I let my eyes close and then it came back to me. Angela, from high school. She was always clinging to me, and I could recall the scent of her hair – she must have been using the same shampoo as this stranger.

I remember her getting married last year. I attended the wedding, and by all accounts it was a joyous occasion. Her husband was a good-looking, respectable man. I think he worked for one of my company’s competitors. There was lots of good food. There was a reunion with some of the other girls from my graduation year. Yet looking back, the happy memories seemed tinged with something else, a feeling that was clearer now that I was looking back on them. A sadness, a reminder that the high school years we shared were long behind us. We had reunited, but we were all employed, all working, all focused on our careers. Angela was the first of our loose social circle to get married, and we all knew that most of us would follow in the coming years.

I remember hugging Angela as I congratulated her. She was still using that same kind of shampoo, years later. I remember her nearly always by my side. I remember begging my mother to let me visit her place in the evening, and the interrogation she gave Angela when I invited her around. I remember sitting on her bed as we discussed what books we were reading, what our plans for the future were. Mine were a nice job and a husband. She wanted to travel and make art – paintings, I think. Funny how that worked out. I really should call her some time. I did miss her companionship.

But why did I remember her so clearly? I did read something once that said smells were particularly effective at rousing memories. But the woman leaning against my shoulder wasn’t Angela. My memory of her was a girl my height with a cute, round face. This stranger was almost the opposite, with her long brown hair and sharp features. Long brown hair cascaded down past her shoulders. She wore only light makeup, her lashes naturally long and full. There could be worse people to have leaning on one’s shoulder. She was dressed – well, immodestly is what my mother would say. But given the afternoon heat outside, I suppose shorts made sense. I would have been more comfortable walking in them. Still my thoughts continued to drift. I wondered if this stranger had a mother who would critique her choice of legwear. Or maybe she had one less restrictive. Or maybe she was living on her own. I wondered why she was on the train at this hour, and asleep too. A lazy, easy going person? Was she working until late? She shifted, starting to wake, and as she slowly blinked I realised I had been staring and quickly looked away.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She seemed genuinely apologetic, a slight blush coming to her cheeks.

“It’s alright.”

She sat upright, and for a moment I missed the feeling of her warmth on my shoulder. I thought of Angela leaning on me and I wondered when I’d next get that kind of feeling. I wondered when I’d have someone of my own I could lean on.

///

I felt myself stir from my nap and realised that my head was tilted to the side, resting on something soft – I’d fallen asleep on someone’s shoulder.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s alright.” The unlucky stranger was a young office lady, her voice soft but still clear even above the sound of the train. During rush hour she would have been just another one of the hundreds, no, thousands of people navigating through the rush on the way to work. But on this easy afternoon, she stood out amongst the more casually dressed passengers in the carriage. I let myself have one appreciative look at her outfit - she was certainly my type. Something about a blazer, stockings, and pencil skirt just does it for me. I’m not really sure why, was it some kind of attraction to my opposite? I didn’t consider myself a rebel, even though I’ve been told I don’t have much respect for authority. Maybe it’s a fascination with a world I’m not a part of.

I could have had that life, I suppose. I went to a nice school. Maybe I could have gotten a scholarship to a fancy university. I could be wearing a button up blazer too, shuffling paper around an office and dealing from a desk. At the time, I know that I never would have been able to do that – I couldn’t ever fit myself into that box. Cecilia once said something like that to me, when I wondered if running the store would have been easier with some kind of degree in business or management or whatever else. “Everything you’ll need to know, you’ll learn at the store. Or I’ll teach you,” was what she had said. Her advice and experience hadn’t failed me yet.

Her advice also applied to women. I remember her warning me about this type too. That you had to be careful around them. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be part of our world. It was that they had something to lose. They often had ties holding them back. I wondered at the time whose experience Cecilia was speaking from. Was it the friends she’d seen come through Ruby, asking for drinks to drown their heartbreaks? I sensed it was a little more personal than that, but I didn’t want to pry at the time. Even now, if I was to ask, it would only be for my own selfish curiosity.

But ignoring the stereotypes and my own issues, just right in this moment - there was something about this one that made me want to stare. She seemed dreamy, yet intense. I’m a curious person. If I have a question, I have to know the answer. And right now, I wanted to know more about her. Yet I know what’s polite and what isn’t, and small talk with strangers is not something one does on the MTR. For a moment I considered whether I should try anyway. But the train settled that issue for me, the woman rising as the speakers announced the next stop.

Someone respectable like her lived in another world. She didn’t live in my world. I watched her walk with purpose through the sliding door, and I wondered if I’d ever see her again.


End file.
